masters

Diane Hill, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-2018

December 7th, 2017 by Diane Hill | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Diane Hill, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-2018
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I love books, and I’ve always thought of myself as having an eclectic taste when it comes to literature. My all-time favourite series has got to be Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. In fact, my copies are so well used that the spine is starting to show some serious wear. I am also an avid Stephen King and Ian Rankin fan. Gothic fiction, however, is my favourite genre. It is this love for books that made me initially study a BA in English and Journalism studies from the University of Stirling. This course brought together my love for books, and also my love for writing. It also equipped me with the skills and experience to write content for online and magazine publications, which I have accumulated into a portfolio.

I took a year out after graduating to focus on finding my direction in life. I enjoy journalism, however, I felt that it wasn’t a career choice I wanted in my future. Deciding to further my education, I came across the MLitt Publishing Studies course and everything seemed to click into place. I have learned so much from my time on this course. It has helped me come to the decision that Editorial is the career path I’d like to take. I’m very interested in working in an area related to Young Adult fiction or children’s books.

In my spare time, I am an avid short story writer and have only just begun sending them away to fiction magazines for publication. I have also acted as a proof-reader for friends who are current and past students. This has ranged from essays to dissertations. This course has also allowed me the chance to apply for internships to try and gain some experience in this industry.

I can be found on Twitter.

Kathryn Haldane, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

November 29th, 2017 by Kathryn Haldane | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Kathryn Haldane, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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The question I was asked most as a child was ‘so you’re going to be an author when you grow up?’. This seemed like a logical idea; I read and wrote voraciously, and I thought that if I could do this for the rest of my life, that would be pretty much perfect. As I got older, I discovered that it’s not so easy to just become an author, and I still can’t find many jobs that involve me sitting and reading all day long. It took me a surprisingly long time to discover that publishing was a possible career option for me. For the longest time, I was so absorbed by the contents of the books themselves that I never gave much thought to how they actually came into being.

My interest in stories made me choose an undergraduate degree in English and Film Studies at The University of St Andrews. Although I enjoyed many aspects of my undergraduate degree, I learned that I did not want to work as an academic studying books for the rest of my life, but would still love to work around them in some capacity. I did as much work experience as I could to try and figure out where my interests lay, and did several placements at TV and newspaper businesses. They were fascinating, but they affirmed to me that working with books was what I definitely wanted to do.

After graduating this June, I stayed in St Andrews to work through the summer while applying for jobs and internships in publishing, and was finally rewarded with an internship at Alban Books in Edinburgh. It was an interesting and informative experience, and thankfully made me completely certain that I wanted to work in the publishing industry. Only late in the summer did I come across the MLitt in Publishing Studies at Stirling – I never knew such a thing existed, and right away I knew it was what I wanted to do. I never thought I would be going back to university to do postgraduate study, but I liked how vocational the course at Stirling seemed to be, and was excited by the prospect of learning real skills I could use in the workplace. I’m particularly looking forward to doing work experience at local publishing houses to get a feel for which area of the industry I would like to work in, and of course living in another beautiful part of Scotland.

Twitter: @kathrynhaldane

Wendy Russell, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

November 10th, 2017 by Wendy Russell | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Wendy Russell, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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A mature student, I have recently graduated from Stirling Uni.  in Heritage and Conservation and through the course of my studies, I was able to do modules in History and English (always my favourite subjects at school).  I decided that I wanted to stay on to do a Masters and searched for a course that would give me greater employability, but that I also enjoy.  I have been self-employed for many years and ideally would like to continue with this in some form after the course.  Hopefully, throughout this year I will find a focus for business development which would utilise my knowledge of the heritage sector and combine this with publishing.

I have been a volunteer at the Battle of Bannockburn Centre and the Anne Frank Trust and more than anything else, I would say that this taught me to be flexible in what you want to do and be open to new ideas.

I feel that this is a really interesting time in publishing and that we have the opportunity to be a part of the changes that are taking place.

 

Lucie Santos, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

November 10th, 2017 by Lucie Santos | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Lucie Santos, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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I am very fond of travelling, of discovering a new culture and a new way of thinking. Sometimes, I just observe people and I see what they want to do or who they want to be. So, one of the best way for me to get into culture and to develop my critical thinking is to read books. As an editor, you take part in someone’s dream and you have to meliorate it and to think how their book can interest someone else.

After my A-level in France, I searched what I wanted to do and I found my life’s passion: working in publishing and books. I did my bachelor’s degree in publishing at Paris-Descartes University. I developed my skills in digital publishing and made different internships in bookshops and in indie publishing houses. I am particularly interested in South American literature. That is why I made an internship in a publishing house in Buenos Aires. I learned a lot from this experience and I can speak fluent Spanish.

Thanks to that I made an apprenticeship last year in Nathan, a publishing house in Paris, working at the Spanish methods department. I made some copy-editing in French and Spanish, proofreading, iconography researches and I was in charge of the rights for the texts and images of two textbooks. I really enjoyed getting in touch with literary agents, sending contracts and respecting the copyrights. It was really interesting and I realized that to follow my dreams and create my own publishing house specialized in translated fiction, I should improve my English. I chose Stirling University because I wanted to discover the Scottish culture and develop my skills in publishing. I am very passionate about the classes and I really want to work in this sector.

If you are interested in my work, you can have a look at my Linkedin profile.

Yuehan Chen, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

November 10th, 2017 by Yuehan Chen | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Yuehan Chen, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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Hi, I am Yuehan Chen, you can also call me Hannah.

I come from the city of Chengdu in China, the hometown of pandas and spicy hotpot. I have loved reading since I was a little girl. Bertrand Russell once said: “There are two motives for reading a book: one that you enjoy it; the other that you can boast about it”, and mine is the former. I really enjoy the time when I immerse myself in the world of words, which brings me peace and pleasure. Gradually, I began to think about that what a mystery the word is and how these words are printed and published. And because I wanted to figure out the secret of words, my interest in Publishing grew and grew. Therefore, in February 2016 I started to teach myself the basics of publishing. I choose to study this course in Stirling University in order to get a more comprehensive understanding of publishing and put the publishing knowledge I have learned into practice.

When I was an undergraduate I worked as the Vice Chairman and Outreach Minister of the Students Union, and I gained many experiences from it that I think can be applied to publishing such as organising a program of events, how to apply for sponsorship and how to save money, which I think is important in publishing. I studied Applied Psychology in Nanjing for four years – it was interesting and I really enjoyed it. But after four years,  I found that the more Chinese psychology books I read, the fewer  options I had for what to read next, as there are not so many psychology textbooks written in Chinese. After graduating from Stirling I want to produce more high quality Chinese psychology textbooks or magazines, and since I am really interested in book design now, maybe I will do some psychology textbook translation or design in the future.

You can find me on

instagram@hannahhh08

Twitter@yuehan_chen

 

Shangbin Qu, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

October 23rd, 2017 by Shangbin Qu | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Shangbin Qu, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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Hi, my name is Shangbin Qu, you can also call me Annie.  I am currently studying  Publishing Studies course at University of Stirling. I graduated from University of Stirling and Heibei Normal University with 2:1 BA joint degree in Translation and Interpreting.

This is my second year at Stirling. I didn’t change locations for Master studies because I really enjoy in life here, people are so friendly and the campus is beautiful.

From January 2017, I started to take the job as Chinese Student Ambassador at the international office, mainly to help the recruitment manager towards China applications, and a major part of my job is to operate and manage the Wechat public account for Stirling University, which is a widely-used app among Chinese.  By doing this, I known about e-publishing and  interested in publishing studies.

I hope my future career could deal with copyright management, or publishing relating to photo or fashion field.

Ewa Balcerzyk, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

October 19th, 2017 by Ewa Balcerzyk | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Ewa Balcerzyk, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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As most people studying on my course at Stirling, I’m hoping turn my passion for books into a job in publishing. This brilliant idea first occurred to me during my undergraduate course (Mediterranean Civilisation at the University of Warsaw in Poland), when I was attending some basic editing classes. However, I chose not to give up cultural studies and to carry on with a postgraduate degree in the same area. In the meantime, to become acquainted with the publishing world, I attended a one-year postgraduate course in editing and publishing at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Thanks to the skills I acquired there I was able to start working as an editorial assistant in an academic journal at the Institute of Sociology (University of Warsaw). I have also done some proofreading for the Warsaw University Press.

My publishing ambitions are centred around academic books. For a lot of my peers this doesn’t seem to be the most thrilling part of the industry, but for me this is where the most important work is done. Already during my first year at the the university I felt that after graduating I would really miss being up to date with all that exciting research going on in the humanities. The problem was that the perspective of becoming an academic seemed a bit daunting to me – I didn’t want to spend my life separated from the rest of the world by the thick university walls. Then one summer day it dawned on me that by working in academic publishing I could have the best of both worlds – I could have a “real” job and at the same be involved in the process of developing new knowledge!

The first few weeks of the publishing course here at Stirling have definitely showed me that there is much more to publishing books than just copy-editing. What’s more important, they convinced me that with enough determination I too will soon be a professional publisher.

You can find me on Twitter.

Bea Joubert, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

October 9th, 2017 by Bea Joubert | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Bea Joubert, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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I used to get into trouble for reading.

My mother would call my name 4, 5, 10 times, trying to yank my attention away from the pages my nose was buried in. Luckily, she never stayed mad for long, and I never stopped reading. I began writing, too, as readers often do; that pursuit led me to my first Creative Writing class at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, B.C. While I enjoyed developing my writing skills (which I still do every day), the best part of that class for me was editing my fellow students’ work.

After a semester at UBC I transferred to Mount Royal University in Calgary, where I eventually got my undergrad in English Lit. I took all the creative writing classes available to me, eventually co-editing the Advanced Poetry class project, a collection of poetry we’d written throughout the term. Knowing I wanted to be an editor, I then set my sights on the Publishing Program at the University of Stirling.

Before I could get my toes into the MLitt, though, I had to get a graduate diploma in Media & Humanities; here I was fortunate enough to be able to pursue a research topic of my choosing. Naturally, I chose to study what I love, and wrote ~15,000 words on Editing in the Creative Writing Workshop.

Currently, in the MLitt Publishing program, I’m learning everything necessary to be the editor extraordinaire I know I am fated to be. Getting comfortable with InDesign is especially enjoyable for me, and not an area I thought I’d be particularly good at … proof that one doesn’t need to be an artist to understand (and love) great design.

In other news, I’m super into Craft Beer, Tarantino movies, tweeting about books and cats and Canada, and Shakespeare (duh?).
twitter: @BeaJoubert

instagram: Bea Joubert

Sofia Fernandez, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-2018

October 7th, 2017 by Sofia Fernandez | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Sofia Fernandez, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-2018
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Last year I found out Publishing entails all I ever felt passionate for in life. On 2012 I chose to study an undergraduate degree in English Philology in my birth country, Spain, because of my interest on language processing and English language literature. During the last five past years I understood that not only the meaning of the text started to be important to me, but the aesthetics. I enjoy paying attention to the way the writing is presented, by means of the cover of the book and the entire layout. All these interests stood to reason when I attended a careers advice meeting in which an old student of the university lectured about her work on Blackwell Publishing after finishing her literature degree and I became fascinated with the editorial field work.

I then applied for an internship in “Opera Prima”, an independent editorial established in Madrid. I worked there during three months carrying out different activities in all the departments because the firm is very small. I took part on edition tasks (style editing, layout, proofreading and complete design of the book), promotion department (contact with media, design of newsletters, follow-up of promotion campaigns) and the distribution of books (registration of books in the commercial circuit, activation of the inputs in bookshops, invoicing and delivery shipment). After this internship I decided to study book design more in depth by attending to an Adobe InDesign course certificate. Moreover, on December 2016 I worked on Fnac enterprise as a shop assistant during three months and had the opportunity to be present on the commercial circuit of books on a real bookstore. I then decided to apply for a job position in Elle magazines and I got hired. However, the job conditions were very bad because, being completely honest, Spain is not doing great on the economy recovery after the financial crisis we had. 

As a result, I thought that undertaking a postgraduate in publishing studies at the University of Stirling would be a huge opportunity to gain experience on the field in another language, and fulfill my career ambitions ABROAD! (And also because there is so much more I do not know yet…) Now that classes have started I feel I am having the time of my life because I cannot believe all the chances the University offers to get involved in the profession. Moreover, apart from the lectures and several practical exercises that put you on the situation of working in the business, I am very excited to create my own physical publishing project (a book). This encourages me to show the best that is in me and demonstrate I can make a contribution to the field. I am here to stay. Hurray for publishing and its exciting world!

Find me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Lea Intelmann, MLitt Publishing Studies 2017-2018

October 5th, 2017 by Lea Intelmann | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Lea Intelmann, MLitt Publishing Studies 2017-2018
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From when I was very little, I was a dedicated traveler. I would go to far away countries, space and underseas as well as places that where not to be found on any map. The books I read and the stories I re-lived made me the person I am today. And I’m grateful for that.
So I decided that I wanted to work in publishing and contribute to this. Overwhelmed by the vast selection of subjects I went to study German and International Literature at Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen (that’s a teeny tiny city in Germany). I quickly realised how much I liked copy-editing and proofreading. I became better and better at spotting mistakes and improving texts to their very best as my friends and fellow students cluttered me with term-papers and dissertations. To further extend my skills I interned at a small publishing company in Hamburg, where I had the chance to copy-edit complete novels, learn a lot about the daily work in a publishing house as well as interact with authors. I prolonged my studies a bit by studying at the renowned National University of Singapore for one semester before finally finishing my bachelor’s degree. I moved back to my beloved Hamburg and found work as a copy-editor and proofreader for online content. I quickly realised that this wasn’t the way that would lead me towards a publishing career so I applied for the master’s programme in Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling. I appreciate the broad range of skills we are taught in our programme as well as the close relations to the actual publishing industry. Coming to Stirling proved to be a great decision! While studying, I also freelance as a copy-editor and proofreader for different companies, including a translation agency, e-commerce agencies and dissertation-editing services.

Find me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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